Sinatra

by Anthony Summers

  239 accommodation: According to Davis, the new place was a rented home in the Hollywood Hills. Other sources say Sinatra actually bought the house (Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Yes, I Can, 220, 228, Sinatra, Legend, 316, LAT Calendar, Jul. 26, 1992, Fishgall, 89); (idolatry) int. Peggy Connelly.

  239 Davis/FS admiration: (imitated FS) Haygood, 177, 180–, Star, Feb. 17, 1976; (“staggering talents”) Ebony, Jul. 1958; (clipping/snapping) Granata, 102.

  239 Davis and women: (promiscuous) Haygood, 181, Fishgall, 154; (“Frank just beat”) Haygood, 200–. Maxwell House heir Bob Neal, who was close to Sinatra in these years, told the authors the singer “got tough” with prostitutes, as distinct from women of “quality.” He recalled an episode in which Frank “hit one [prostitute] with a shoe, hit her with the heel of her shoe because she did something that displeased him.” Two Sinatra books refer to a similar incident, but depict a furious Sinatra being hit on the head by the woman, rather than the other way around. A 1959 FBI document refers to an “escapade where a girl was assaulted by Sinatra and slightly injured in some kind of fracas.” Recall too the earlier incident in which a woman was injured at Sinatra’s Palm Springs house (“get tough”—int. Bob Neal; Sinatra hit woman—Dwiggins, with wrong date, 119–, Taraborrelli, 220–; document re “escapade”—“File Review & Summary Check,” Sep. 19, 1960, 17, FBI LA 100-41413; earlier incident—see Chapter 20, p. 217).

  239–40 Davis and controversy: (embracing Judaism) ibid., 79–, Haygood, 183–.

  239 Davis and Novak: Haygood, 196–, Brown, 148–. Davis later acknowledged the affair, but Novak denied it—most recently in 2004 (Davis acknowledged—Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Yes, I Can, 434–, Why Me, 81–; Novak denied—Brown, 160, Fishgall, 117, int. Kim Novak, Larry King Live; (Cohn apoplectic) Sam Kashner and Jennifer MacNair, The Bad and the Beautiful, New York: Norton, 2002, 209; (Rand/hoodlum) Haygood, 263; (phony union) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Yes, I Can, 460–; (“well-connected friend”/Mafia boss) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Why Me, 93–, Rose, 477; (Woodfield insight) ints. Billy Woodfield.

  240 Joe Fischetti and Davis: According to biographer Haygood, Davis had been beholden to the Mafia for some time, and to the Chicago mob in particular. Ever inept at handling his finances, he had borrowed mob money to settle old debts. FBI records reflect continued contact with Fischetti in the 1960s (Davis beholden—Haygood, 217; contact with Fischetti—report re “Joseph John Fischetti,” Apr. 25, 1963, FBI 92-3024-60).

  240 Davis and Gardner: The story about Davis and Ava, run in Confidential magazine, was a string of unsubstantiated insinuations built around a photograph of Davis in a Santa suit and beard and Ava in a red dress, an innocuous picture for the Christmas issue of another magazine. The story may have been without foundation, but former Davis aide Arthur Silber Jr. has claimed the pair slept with each other “on a few occasions” (Confidential, Mar. 1955, in ed. Early, 246—see also p. 575, Evans tapes, Gardner, 199—and, with an inaccurate timeline, Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Why Me, 211–; Silber “a few”—Fishgall, 87); (FS fury assuaged) Jacobs and Stadiem, 68–; (Bitterman) Haygood, 28–.

  240 “Talent is not”: Dwiggins, 149, Chicago’s American, Sep. 30, 1966. The offending interview, with celebrity radio host Jack Eigen, took place in the lounge of the Chez Paree in Chicago; (retribution/apologized) Shaw, Sinatra, 257, O’Brien, 121, James Spada, Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets, New York: Bantam, 1991, 210; (“disgusting”) Wilson, Sinatra, 140–; (“Charley”) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Yes, I Can, 111, 221, 229; (catch-all name) Gehman, 54, Shaw, Sinatra: A Biography, London: W. H. Allen, 1968, 367.

  240–41 Peter Lawford: (“Charley the Seal”) Good Housekeeping, Feb. 1962, Zehme, 38; (halfway decent) NYT, Dec. 25, 1984; (early life) Lawford with Schwarz, and Spada, Lawford, refs.; (“awful accident”/“Coogan”) Spada, Lawford,29, 42; (“well-hewn god”) Twentieth Century-Fox PR profile, undat. 1952, MHL; (Maxwell) Modern Screen, Mar. 21, 1947, Lawford with Schwarz, 59; (Turner) ibid., 51, 58–; (Gardner) Evans tapes, Torme, Velvet, 98–; (met FS) Modern Screen, Mar. 21, 1947; (skits) int. Gloria Cahn Franks, Kelley, 113; (“singulartemper”) Modern Screen, Mar. 21, 1947; (Ava “date”) int. Milt Ebbins, Kelley, 206; (“I was in bed”) Star, Feb. 17, 1976.

  242 met at dinner party: The dinner party, at the home of Gary Cooper and his wife, has been dated as August 1958, but other information (see below) makes it clear Sinatra and the couple were already close by that date. The dinner most likely occurred in late 1957 or early 1958 (August 1958—Spada, Lawford, 203, and see Christopher Lawford, Symptoms of Withdrawal , New York: William Morrow, 2005, 40–); (Dinah Shore) Jan. 26, 1958, entry, Where or When? (movies with FS) Never So Few, 1959, Ocean’s 11, 1960; (restaurant) Spada, Lawford, 205—the restaurant was Puccini’s.

  242 “He looked up”: Star, Feb. 17, 1976, American Weekly, Nov. 12, 1961. The Sinatra-Lawford rift evidently occurred in spring 1954, when Ava Gardner returned to Los Angeles after making The Barefoot Contessa. Lawford’s reference in a later interview to 1951 is in error. References that place the reconciliation in August 1958, or alternatively 1959, are also in error. Whatever the significance of the January 1958 appearance on the Dinah Shore show, they were clearly together as friends by June that year—during the first of two trips to Europe (rift—Kelley, 206, Star, Feb. 17, 1976, Lawford with Schwarz, 100–, but see Higham, Ava, 148, Carpozi, Poison Pen, 228–; reconciliation—Spada, Lawford, 483, Star, Feb. 17, 1976, but see Dwiggins, 122, Shaw, Sinatra, 247, New York Herald Tribune, Jun. 19, New York Post, Jun. 23, 1958, corr. Ric Ross); (enthusing/aped) ints. Peter Dye, George Jacobs, Cosmopolitan, Oct. 1961.

  242 “This is such”: American Weekly, Nov. 12, 1961. Peter and Pat Lawford were as subject to Sinatra’s bad temper as anyone else. On New Year’s Eve 1958, when they delayed a trip to see him in Palm Springs, he tried to set fire to the clothing they had left at his house. When the clothes did not burn easily, he threw them into the pool (Jacobs, 131, Lawford with Schwarz, 103–).

  242–43 Some Came Running: (“typical American town”) High Times, Jun. 1978; (boorish behavior) Time, Aug. 25, New York Daily News, Sep. 2, 3, 1958, Carpozi, Sinatra, 190–, MacLaine, 84; (ripped phone) New York Daily News, Sep. 3, 1958; (smashed TV) Time, Aug. 25, 1958; (“Mr. Sinatra grabbed”) New York Daily News, Sep. 3, 1958; (MacLaine account) int. Shirley MacLaine, and MacLaine, 65–, 61, 74, 69, 84, 71, 109.

  244 “A Life magazine reporter”: Gehman, 50, Star, Dec. 15, 1981, and see Shirley MacLaine, Don’t Fall off the Mountain, London: Bodley Head, 1971, 102. Shirley MacLaine later named the Life reporter with whom she and colleagues declined to cooperate as “Dave Zeitlin.” Time-Life cover story veteran Paul O’Neil, however, wrote the landmark December 1958 “Clan” story; (“Noncomformity”) Life, Dec. 22, 1958, int. Michael O’Neil; (Davis quoted/source) Shaw, Sinatra, 262; (“He was our leader”) Philadelphia Daily News, May 18, 1998.

  244–45 Rat Pack name and behavior: (“Clan” label disowned) FS in Daily Variety,Aug. 25, 1960, and cited in Tarraborrelli, 211, Lawford in American Weekly, Nov. 12, 1961, Davis in ed. Early, 238; (change to Rat Pack) Gehman, 36, 52; (“just a group”) Pittsburgh Courier, Mar. 3, 1962; (FS definitions/“quim”) Gehman, 53–; (“bird”) Zehme, 39, Philadelphia Daily News, May 18, 1998; (“charlies”) ibid.; (“Mother”) Gehman, 54; (“I’m not a prude”) int. Keely Smith by Jim Raposa.

  245–46 “Summit at Sands”: (Entratter took) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Why Me, 107; Variety, Aug. 11, 1997; (spoof telegrams) Wilson, Show Business, 15, Ralph Pearl, Las Vegas Is My Beat, Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1973, 65; (34,000/ $100/$3) Playboy, Jun. 1960, Pearl, 67; (“a wild iconoclasm”) Playboy, Jun. 1960; (“the Mount Rushmore”) Vanity Fair, May 1997; (“Hey, where the hell’s”/“Dean, close”/undershorts) Pearl, 66, Playboy, Jun. 1960; (“Here they are”) ibid.; (ice bucket) Starr, 57; (“ The Power”) Variety, Aug. 11, 1997; (“the only cold-sober”) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Yes, I Can, 496; (“They were all”) corr. Ed Walters, by permission; (“g
lorification”) Miami Herald, Mar. 29, 1960; (“Drinking a great deal”) Davis, Suitcase, 83; (“You wanna dance”) Gehman, 73, Playboy, Jun. 1960; (“I’ll dance wit’ ya”/hurtful) Fishgall, 154; (mangling lyrics) Playboy, Jun. 1960.

  246–47 Rat Pack & sex: (Clubhouse) Esquire, Mar. 1996, corr. Ed Walters, by permission, Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Yes, I Can, 498; (initials) Las Vegas Review-Journal,May 16, 1998; (brown robe) Sinatra, My Father, 134; (“I went”) Douglas, 400; (“I was like eighteen”) Rolling Stone, Jun. 25, 1998; (“The place was crawling”) Starr, 61; (“There were poker”) int. Count Guido Deiro; (“When Dean came”) int. Ed Walters; (“on-the-house”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 143; (“Women were treated”) int. Count Guido Deiro.

  247–48 Lawfords/FS and JFK: (weekending at Palm Springs) Star, Feb. 17, 1976, Jacobs and Stadiem, 130; (planned to seduce?) ibid., 129; (Victoria Frances) Spada, Lawford, 204; (godfather) Christopher Lawford, 41; (“I think we were”) Star, Feb. 17, 1976.

  Chapter 23: The Guest from Chicago

  249 JFK image bogus: (chronic illness) Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life, Boston: Little, Brown, 2003, refs., Joan and Clay Blair Jr., The Search for JFK, New York: Berkley, 1976, esp. 635–; (“one of the best-kept”) Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 2002.

  249 celebrity quack: That Kennedy resorted to treatment by the quack doctor, Max Jacobson, is now accepted as fact. “I don’t care if it’s horse piss,” Kennedy said of the injections Jacobson administered, “it works.” As president, he went so drugged to a meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (Jacobson—e.g., refs. in Dallek).

  249 recreational drugs: The fragments of information now available about Kennedy’s alleged drug use include a claim that he used cocaine during a visit to Las Vegas in early 1960, experimented with marijuana and LSD with a lover in the White House, and—with his brother-in-law Peter Lawford—fed amyl nitrate to a woman to see how it affected her sexual experience (drug use in Vegas—corr. Ed Walters, used by permission; drugs in White House—Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman, New York: Bantam, 1998, 11–, 212, 286, the lover was Mary Meyer; amyl nitrate—Lawford with Schwarz, 137–); (“lines of cocaine”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 140, 347; JFK and sex: (“like God”) Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993, 291; (“I once asked”) Dallek, 152, and see Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Marina and Lee, New York: Harper and Row, 1977, 3.

  250 “Where sex”: Summers, Goddess, 240. There is fulsome coverage of Kennedy’s sex life in Robert Dallek’s study An Unfinished Life, in Joan and Clay Blair’s The Search for JFK— often overlooked but invaluable—in Richard Reeves’s President Kennedy: Profile of Power (all cited earlier) and in Nigel Hamilton’s Reckless Youth, New York: Random House, 1992, and Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House, New York: Random House, 2004. It has been suggested that the medication he took for Addison’s disease contributed—as it has in other patients—to heightened sexual desire (Blair, 648, Dallek, 213).

  250 Joe Kennedy background/bootlegging: (“partners” with Costello) NYT, Feb. 27, 1973. Costello’s remarks, made to the journalist Peter Maas, were reported in the New York Times in early 1973. In a book the following year, the mafioso’s longtime attorney George Wolf seemed to suggest his client may merely have dropped Joe Kennedy’s name mischievously—both to Maas and in an earlier comment to the State Liquor Commission about post-Prohibition activity— when in fact he had been referring to a different Joe Kennedy. Other information, however, indicates Costello was indeed speaking of the future president’s father (Wolf comments—Wolf with DiMona, 146–, 202; other information—Katz, 68–, 13, Joseph Bonanno with Sergio Lalli, A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983, 174); (fell out) Mahoney, 43; (Stacher) Eisenberg, Dan, and Landau, 108–; (Dalitz) Mahoney, 39, 383n83; (Madden) Graham Nown, The English Godfather, London: Ward Lock, 1987, 189, 195; (“I discussed”) Hersh, 50; (Kohlert/customs report) Russo, 360, 361.

  250–51 McLaney syndicate background: In 1973, in testimony to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, a witness said McLaney “represents Meyer Lansky”—Luciano’s close accomplice. With the go-ahead from Lansky, McLaney later purchased a large share in Havana’s mob-controlled Hotel Nacional. A longtime McLaney aide backed up his assertion about Joe Kennedy (Hearings, HSCA, U.S. Government Printing Office, vol. 10, 185, and see Russo, 67–); (“controlled by Luciano”) information supplied to authors by Gus Russo, who interviewed McLaney; (hijackings) Eisenberg, Dan, and Landau, 109, Mark A. Stuart, Gangster: The Story of Longy Zwillman, London: Star, 1987, 42, Morgan, 58, Russo, 361—the two bootleggers were Murray Humphreys and Joe Reinfeld, both prominent in the illicit trade; (“rum-running”) Hersh, 138, and see supra., 19–; (Cassara) Fox, 315–, Hersh, 52–; (Kennedy sold to bootleggers) Richard Whalen, The Founding Father, Washington, DC: Regnery, 1993, 380–, Fox, 316, Hersh, 54, Sifakis, 353, Stuart, 40—partners were Moretti associate Longy Zwillman and Joseph Reinfeld; (“vaguely embarrassing”) Whalen, 380; (Joe not run) ibid., 137, 345, 358, Ralph G. Martin, A Hero for Our Time, New York: Macmillan, 1983, 41–; (“I told him”) ibid., 48; (winning) ibid., 22, Dallek, 36; (“Everything Joe”/at unprecedented rate) Dallek, 130; (“I will work”) ibid., 169—the staffer was Frank Morrissey.

  251 Joe pinned his hopes: Joe Kennedy had had presidential aspirations for his firstborn son Joe Jr., but he had been killed during the war. “If it isn’t Joe,” Kennedy had said even before that loss, “it will be Jack.” Martin, 41.

  251 Kennedys and Bonanno: (1954/1956 visits) int. Bill Bonanno, Bill Bonanno, Bound by Honor, New York: St. Martin’s, 1999, 5, 7, 27–. As Bill Bonanno told it in his 1999 book, Joe Kennedy visited Bonanno in late 1955 “looking to drum up support for his son.” Scholarly studies of the 1956 campaign, however, indicate that the elder Kennedy was for months actively opposed to his son trying for the vice-presidential slot. It may be that—if authentic—Bonanno’s recollection is of an early reconnaissance trip (Dallek, 206–, Parmet, 335–); (Joe Bonanno background)Sifakis, 40–, Brashler, 187, Bonanno with Lalli, refs.; (“skill”) ibid., 165–; (Moretti) int. Bill Bonanno, Bonanno with Lalli, 56–, 166, 172, 319.

  251–52 “No Democrat”/“Kennedy told”: Bonanno, 7, 27–. The author Gay Talese, who made Bill the subject of his book on the Mafia, Honor Thy Father, told the authors he found him a credible source. We note, however, that Bound by Honor and subsequent Bonanno interviews include dramatic, uncorroborated claims about the Mafia’s alleged role in President Kennedy’s assassination. Notwithstanding those claims, and given what else is now known about Joe Kennedy’s crime links, Bonanno Jr.’s statements about the Kennedy visits to his father deserve inclusion here (int. Gay Talese, but see re assassination claims Bonanno, 299–, and Bill Bonanno ints., time.com, May 11, 1999, crime.about .com, Aug. 5, 1999); (JFK/Battaglia at mass) Rosen to Boardman, Mar. 4, 1958, Hoover O&C files, vol. 13.

  252 Battaglia Democratic official/Bonanno friend: (Tucson) Daily Citizen, Jan. 22, 1970, Bonanno with Lalli, 307, Bonanno, 8. Though Battaglia’s obituary merely identifies him as former vice chairman of the Arizona state Democratic Party, author Richard Mahoney has identified him as having been a Mafia underboss. Joe Bonanno’s son Bill, who was once groomed to succeed his father, wrote of the Kennedy contacts in his 1999 memoir Bound by Honor. He told the authors that Battaglia was “part of our world” (Mahoney, 39, 383, and—re mob link—see Rosen to Boardman).

  252 Bonanno met JFK: ibid. The agents’ sighting of John F. Kennedy with Battaglia was in February 1958, while Bonanno referred in his memoir to having met the future president “in 1959–1960.” It is not clear whether the Mafia boss misremembered the date of the encounter or whether there was more than one meeting.

  252 in touch FS/wedding/one of FS guests: Bonanno said in a later interview that in the event Sinatra was unable to perform at the 1956 wedding—Tony Bennett performed instead (re-broadcast int.—Joe Bonanno on 60 Minute
s, CBS News, May 19, 2002, int. Bill Bonanno, Bonanno, 42 and photo, and see Bonanno with Lalli, 189–, Gay Talese, Honor Thy Father, Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1971, 24.

  252 Giancana: (background) Brashler, Giancana, and Renner, and Roemer, refs.; (sadistic streak) Brashler, 44; (at side of Accardo) ibid., 120; (power passed) Roemer, 191; (family man) Brashler, 126, Giancana and Renner, 60–, 67–, 99–, 47, int. Antoinette Giancana, Penthouse, Mar. 1984; (“like someone”) ibid., 60–; (“a warm, vital”) Fisher with Fisher, 290–.

  252–53 “He’s such great”: Demaris, Mafioso, 197. Shimon, who was also an electronics expert, met Giancana in 1961 through the mafioso’s henchman Johnny Rosselli, when both men became involved in the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Castro (authors’ ints. Joe Shimon, and see “Interim Report,” Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 94th Cong., 1st sess., 81); (“scary”) int. Rock Brynner; (“He was as serious”) Michael Corbitt with Sam Giancana, Double Deal, New York: Wm. Morrow, 2003, 60–; (beat daughter) Penthouse, Mar. 1984; (shot TV) int. Sonny King; (“ruthless”) SAC Chicago to Director, Oct. 31, 1962, FBI 92-3171-917; (lived by gun) Brashler, 51–, 66, 151–, 156–, Giancana and Renner 32–, 75–.

  253 FS and Giancana: (FS would insist) SAC Los Angeles to Director, Oct. 7, 1963, FBI 92-6667-6, Kelley, 394, FS testimony, Nevada State Gaming Commission and State Gaming Control Board, Feb. 11, 19, 1981; (told FBI) SAC Los Angeles to Director, Oct. 7, 1963, FBI 92-6667-6; (after bureau established) “Title: Samuel M. Giancana,” Sep. 12, 1960, FBI 92-3171.

  253 mass of information: ints. Peggy Connelly, Marilyn Sinatra, Gloria Cahn Franks, NYT int. of Antoinette Giancana, Feb. 2, 1984, Giancana and Renner, 101, Jacobs and Stadiem, 100–, Sinatra, Legend, 112, and see LAT Calendar, Jul. 26, 1992, report, May 5, 1961, FBI 92-636-3; (De Carlo) SAC Newark to SAC New York, Aug. 28, 1947, FBI 94–419535. See earlier exposition of the Sinatra/ De Carlo connection at chapter 5, p. 47–, supra. The FBI document containing the lead refers to De Carlo as “Ray”—his preferred nickname. He was also known as “Gyp”; (“That hoodlum”) Sinatra, Legend, 112; (charity) Giancana and Renner, 81, 94–, 101, 104; (“very affectionate”) NYT, Feb. 2, 1984; (“My father”) int. Marilyn Sinatra.